Wednesday, December 28, 2011

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POP: Pathos - Speech Unit

Powers of Persuasion: Pathos

A Pop Literacies, Urban Middle School
Language Arts Unit Learning Plan





In this seven-lesson, multimedia, Language Arts unit – eighth grade urban learners encounter the power of persuasive speaking and expand their understanding of the concept of persuasion in advertising. Learners consider that effective speakers use volume, pacing, vocal inflection and word choice appropriate to audience. They evaluate how rhetoric designed for a target audience employs imagery and transfer to make appeals to emotion. Through questions concerning cultural perspective, learners also look at ways in which they themselves are a target audience, developing awareness of how the popular mass media maneuvers to persuade them as purchasers of products and consumers buying in to the cultural marketplace of ideas.

While this plan is a discrete, one-week unit, POP: Pathos is envisioned as the second part of a four-part series – not necessarily scheduled back-to-back -- investigating the three appeals identified by Aristotle in classical rhetoric: appeals to reason (logos), to emotion (pathos), and to the speaker’s authority (ethos). These persuasive text/pop media units would ultimately lead to a major final project where teams of learners would collaborate to prepare live multimedia presentations – expressing opinions on a social or cultural issue at play in Chris Crowe’s narrative non-fiction text, Getting Away with Murder: The True Story of the Emmett Till Case, or a similar work.

In this unit, learners will:

  •      Review and discover vocabulary associated with persuasive speaking and persuasive advertising techniques;

  •      Interpret their thoughts about various advertising images, symbols and slogans;

  •      Write and deliver a targeted ad voice-over using various learned techniques;

  •      Create a sound recording of a persuasive speech using Audacity software;

  •      Create a full-motion video clip and publish it using Animoto.com webware;

  •      Present targeted texts and assess why and how student ads are convincing.

Instructional Strategies: Lesson Two sequence is from Sullivan’s “Persuasive Speech” lesson – at Poway Schools, Powayusd.com. Lesson Three uses ideas and information from McCarthy’s “Persuasion through Advertising” lesson, located at Scholastic.com.

Big Idea: Cultural Perspective

Essential Questions:

  • What makes a good speaker?
  • What makes a persuasive speech?
  • For what purposes might an author create a persuasive speech?
  • How are images associated with emotions and feelings?
  • How are images used to persuade?
  • What is perspective?
  • What is cultural perspective?
  • What cultural perspectives do I identify with?
  • How do I deliver a spoken text convincingly?
  • What is a target audience?
  • What target audiences do I belong to?
  • How does intended audience affect word choice?
  • What shapes our point of view?
  • How do others influence our thinking?


Lesson Plan Overview

     Lesson 1 – POP Quiz
o   Web pretest. Review vocal speech techniques -- What makes a good speaker? - volume, pacing and vocal inflection. [What is perspective?]
     Lesson 2 – Commercial Properties
o   What makes a good speech? - word choice. Targeting audience. [How can persuasion skills be used to change perspective?]
     Lesson 3 – Target Audience: Pathos
o   Investigate the concepts of transfer and appeals to emotion. [What is cultural perspective?]
     Lesson 4 – The Write Angle
o   Vocabulary Quiz Bowl. Write text, make word choices, for advertisement voice-over. [What cultural perspectives do I share with others?]
     Lesson 5 – Speaking Engagement
o   Deliver and listen to voice-over speeches. [How does my worldview differ from the perspectives of others?]
     Lesson 6 – Power of Pictures
o   Vocabulary Quiz. Create sound file, choose picture files for voice-over and publish video [How do others influence my thinking?]
     Lesson 7 – Commercial Appeal
o   Presentation of final projects / evaluations. [How is my worldview shaped by the way the world views me?]



Learners: (based on a class from Patrick Henry High) 22 mixed ability students of widely diverse cultural backgrounds. Class has theoretically had a previous speech unit – POP: Logos – and some experience with the basic vocabulary associated with persuasive speaking, the delivery of brief speeches and solo readings, and manipulation of Audacity sound recording software and Animoto.com webware.

Duration: seven, 60-minute sessions

Special Resource Requirements: computer lab, Animoto.com account, Audacity software, examples of print and video advertisements from Creativity-Online.com

Materials – Unit Plan Forms: Target Audience, Picture–Symbol–Slogan map, Transfer Techniques, Voice-Over rubric, Persuasive Presentation rubric feedback form, web pretest, web POP Quiz, Vocabulary list for Quiz Bowl review

Resources/Websites: Animoto.com; sample adverts from [www.creativity-online.com];

“Persuasive Speech” lesson by April Sullivan [www.powayusd.com/pusdctae/exex/2009-products/Hospitality/ admin_powayusd_com_20090724_163000LessonPlan6.pdf].

“Persuasion through Advertising” lesson by Tara McCarthy at Scholastic.com [www.scholastic.com/teachers/lesson-plan/pictures-and-slogans-persuade-audience];



The three appeals identified by Aristotle in classical rhetoric;
appeals to reason (logos), to emotion (pathos), and to the speaker’s authority (ethos).



POP: Pathos
Core Learning Strategy Map

Standard: 8.9.3.3 Delineate and respond to a speaker’s argument, specific claim, and intended audience, evaluating the soundness of the reasoning and relevance and sufficiency of the evidence and identifying when irrelevant evidence is introduced.

Core Objective: I can determine a speaker’s target audience to evaluate a speech’s power and persuasiveness.
Learning Target: I can identify names of common vocal techniques used by speakers.
Learning Assessment: word splash, vocabulary quiz bowl
Learning Target: I can evaluate a persuasive spoken text.
Learning Assessment: two Voice-Over rubric forms – partner and self-assessment
Core Assessments: vocabulary POP Quiz - 20%;
six completed Persuasive Presentation Rubric feedback forms - 30%

Assessment Description: Just before learners partake in the unit’s final presentations, they will each be randomly assigned the names of six other students whose projects they will evaluate using the Persuasive Presentation rubric feedback form.

Standard: 8.9.4.4 Present claims and findings, respect intellectual properties emphasize salient points in a focused, coherent manner with relevant evidence, sound valid reasoning, and well-chosen details; use appropriate eye contact, adequate volume, and clear pronunciation

Core Objective: I can present my ideas clearly and convincingly to a target audience.
Learning Target: I can author a speech intended for a specific audience.
Learning Assessment: written text of advertisement voice-over
Learning Target: I can deliver a speech persuasively.
Learning Assessment: speech presentation of advertisement text
Learning Target: I can record a speech using standard software.
Learning Assessment: Audacity sound file of voice-over
Learning Target: I can create a full motion video using standard webware.
Learning Assessment: published Animoto.com video
Core Assessment: final presentation of published advertisement projects - 50%

Assessment Description: Learners will give a brief introduction and present a published 30-second Animoto.com video – for assessment of written text, *recorded speech, and multimedia elements.

*Based on evaluation of the initial speech presentations, this summative core assessment could be altered so that students would deliver speeches live as their Animoto media file’s music and images play. This would place a greater emphasis on public speaking -- if focus on that skill component is deemed necessary.



Success Opportunity for Urban Learners – SOUL Focus:
Comprehension, Collaboration and Presentation of Knowledge

 
ISTE NETS (National Educational Technology Standards) addressed:

Standard 1 - Students demonstrate creative thinking, construct knowledge, and develop innovative products and processes using technology.

Standard 6 - Students demonstrate a sound understanding of technology concepts, systems, and operations.


Differentiated Instruction: This multidimensional, multiliteracy unit dynamically aligns with several of the MDE’s Speaking Viewing, Listening, Media Literacy benchmarks for Grade 8 and should be fairly simple to adapt to suit all learners in an urban middle school program. For the final project, advanced learners could alternatively be invited to deconstruct a completed, previously published Animoto design and create new narration for a specific target audience – while differentiation for struggling learners might involve inviting students to work in pairs or shifting project length requirements.




Please note the name and acronym of the new heading listed under standards, representing my thought to include -- along with a state standard – an additional standard that specifically identifies the college and career readiness anchor area for inner-city students: Success Opportunity for Urban Learners – SOUL Focus! This urban learning protocol -- based directly on the Common Core website’s CCR definitions – would be an instructional planning assessment tool and a guide to answering the question: “Why do we need to learn this?” My concept here is to energize the passive, academic CCR language so that urban students are explicitly instructed as to which of the basic, broad areas of life and learning skills are being addressed.



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